We had our first heavy snowfall this weekend, everything was covered by a thick layer of brilliant white snow. By the evening that snow had turned into slick half melted ice, which makes walking on the pavement or road a treacherous affair.
In case you didn’t know I am currently on a student exchange at Malardalen university in Västerås, Sweden. I arrived here on the 16th of January, classes started the following week.
I may as well use this as an opportunity to mention a few things about my experience so far as an exchange student.
The exchange program here is very big, they take in 250+ exchange students. 60 of which are Spanish. I currently know more Spaniards than Swedes. Some of them reckon that I should learn to speak Spanish instead of Swedish.
The accommodation I’m staying in is for international students only and is about a 2 minute walk from campus. I think I managed to get the best exchange student accommodation, although the internet here apparently isn’t as good as some of the other places.
Its good to finally be the best English speaker!!! I even get the lecturers in class asking me about the pronunciation of words, it does a lot to remove the barrier between student and teacher.(The word my stats lecturer keeps asking me to repeat at the moment is Cumulative)
Sweden is definitely more expensive then perth, however their are ways to make life a little cheaper. Swedish meatballs, are for some reason really cheap. You can get a kilo of swedish meatballs for 35 to 50 kronor. I’ve been eating meatballs for dinner for the past 5 days. Meatballs with salad and tomato sauce, meatballs with tinned pasta, meatballs with poorly made mashed potatoes. Somehow they are still delicious.
Alcohol is fairly expensive here, although after talking to some of the other exchange students its made me realize that Perth alcohol prices are expensive as well. The state run liquor stores Systembolaget (system for short) have a monopoly on anything with an alcohol content higher then 3.5%. You know you are thinking like a swede when the first thing you look at is the percentage of alcohol in a drink(which in Sweden is conveniently printed on the front in big numbers). Some of the beers here have percentages as high as 11 or 12 %. They taste like ass(what I imagine ass would taste like).
The way stuff is taught here is quite different to UWA. Each semester has two periods, for a full load you will typically take 2 units each period. At the moment I am taking some fluffy stupid environmental sustainability crap subject(I’m an engineer, the environment is my natural enemy) and an advanced level stats unit. I really don’t know why I am doing an advanced level stats unit, I don’t know anything about stats. Each unit I’m doing has only 1 lecture a week, that lecture is however 3 to 4 hours long. The emphasis here seems to be on book learning, which means I have to shell out for the few English language textbooks they have.
Anyway thats all for the moment I guess.
In b4 ‘pics or it didnt happen’, will have some up when I get around to it.
Nicks blog 